Peter Pan's Fate
by CammyWhammy
Summary: The fight between Capt. Hook and Peter does not go according to plan, and the children are thrust from Neverland and back into London feeling as if they had had a bad dream. But Wendy is an extraordinary girl who has always been gifted with the ability to control her dreams, although she doesn't know if yet, and sets off on an adventure to find Peter dead or alive.
1. Chapter 1

"But I won!" Moaned Hook as he swung his sword with increasing passion, and decreasing aim. Peter laughed a resounding laugh which echoed off the sail as he spotted a weakness in the swordplay with ease. The children cheered him on as they held off the pirates aboard, and watched the forces between green and red battle against one another.

"You are old!" Teased Pan, pointing his sword towards the captain's chest. Hook slid sideways to dodge, and Peter's blade slipped into the air underneath the captain's arm. Missed. No matter, Peter would get another chance to strike. And so, it went on. Block, block, parry, strike, dodge, strike, until finally. A hit! The blade pierced flesh, ending the fight, but there were no hoorahs from the children below, only stunned silence. Peter took in a huge breath to laugh with glee but found instead a great pain in his side, and he could not inflate his chest. Confused, he looked to make sure of his blade in Hook's chest, but instead, saw Hook's mystified grin as he held an unsteady hand gripping a blade that stuck Peter right through. Then, finally, Peter felt the prick of pain within him. His face scrunched up in confusion. This was not the way it was meant to happen! He was sure of it, and even as he looked into Hook's bewilderment, Peter knew that the turn of events had taken the captain, too, by surprise. It was not Hook speared at the end of a blade, no, it was Peter.

"Huh…" Peter moaned with that last remaining breath in his lungs. Then the falling, and the shut-out darkness overtook him.

Peter Pan died.

Wendy, John and Michael awoke all at once in their beds. Wendy was shouting "Peter!" and little Michael was too shocked to speak words. They had all witnessed it, the death of Peter Pan, as they had stood on the deck of the Jolly Roger having a fantastical time. John was now sat up in bed, mouth agape, unable to process the reality, or rather, unreality of what had been. Wendy cried, which made Michael cry, but they all shushed up when John said with an obvious shrug "But it was only a dream." Michael calmed at once.

"Only a dream?" Wendy asked. She meant it rather angrily, as she was certain it was not, but the boys only nodded to her reassuringly. Yes, there was really no such boy as Peter Pan after all. The boys, then now quite calm, felt at ease to discuss their adventures, trying to include Wendy all the while who sat strangely quiet upon her bed. They took no notice of her silence of course, boys rarely do, but the adventure of Hook was still too terrifying to tell, and before they could retell the fight of the Jolly Roger, they both yawned showily and bid each other good night. Wendy mumbled good night to them too, but felt for sure something was terribly wrong. Things had not meant to turn out this way! And as she laid back to sleep, Wendy felt the little acorn slip across her chest. It had not been just a dream.

Wendy found that she could not sleep as she normally could. In the past, she had always been quick to wander into dreams and adventure, but tonight she found herself stuck between awake and asleep, so much so that she did not know which she really was. She finally stood out of her bed to look out the window only to open her eyes and realize that she had indeed been asleep and imagining it. Strange. But as she stood to go to the window once again, Wendy felt she surely was awake.

'I know' She thought. 'I should look to my bed to see if I am still lying there, then I can see if I am awake or asleep.' But as she turned her head to see, she felt a terrible shiver run through her, and decided against it. Instead, she turned back to look out the window. Wendy knew, now for certain that she must be sleeping. From her window she could see the Kensington Gardens, but they were alight with glowing much stronger than that of any firefly. And suddenly, one presented itself urgently before her.

It was a small, plain kind of fairy. Not grand or voluptuous like Tinkerbell, but she pulled at Wendy's hair in a similar manner. Her chiming was like that of the clinking of glasses at dinner time, and for this reason, Wendy decided to call her Toast.

Toast was pointing towards the Gardens in a way that said 'You must go there at once!', and Wendy, happy to have finally fallen asleep and having an adventure, did not hesitate.

For habit more than logic, Wendy tiptoed carefully out of her house, closing the door gently behind her where Toast was clinking on in aggravation.

The streets were quiet, and London was dark. Everything seemed so real and normal that Wendy had to again wonder whether or not this was a dream. But as she got to the gardens, the Gates opened without help to her, and outpoured a generous helping of fairies, who each grabbed a small fistful of Wendy's nightdress to pull her into the Gardens. Everywhere there was bright light popping in her eyes, and tinkling in her ears. She still could not understand the fairies, and when their fairy dust made her sneeze directly on the Queen fairy, all attempts of communications were halted. The royal family were disgraced, and Wendy was then poked with holly leaves as little fairy soldiers pointed to an area within the Gardens.

"All right! All right!" She exclaimed at the prodding. "I understand, you want me to follow, so lead!" The soldiers lowered their leaves then, and marched in little steps through the Gardens. It was dreadfully slow as their legs were so little, she wondered why they did not fly. They occasionally looked back to see if she still followed, and they walked for a very long time. They walked practically through to the other side, where the Gardens ended in the Serpentine River, and indeed, that is exactly where they led her. Onto the small bridge they stopped and pointed out to the dark and flowing waters. Wendy was aghast.

"You want me to jump in there?" She asked. The fairy general stomped his foot and tinkled a high pitched 'no!' which Wendy actually made out. Then he cupped his hands around his eyes to signal 'look', and did the queerest thing. The fairy general got onto his knees and over the bridge to turn his head just a bit. He then said in his high pitched fairy speak.

"Look!" And Wendy understood. So, she got down on her knees and gripped the side of the bridge with her hands, then bent over the edge to see what there was to see.

There were dark waters flowing, that was for sure, but they were flowing about a mass of some sort. It was awfully misty for a warm night, but Wendy found the harder she peered, the more it cleared.

Then there, in the middle of the river, stood a small island. There on the island was the unmistakable shape of Peter Pan. He seemed to have spotted her, and he waved merrily to her.

"Wendy!" He said, and it sounded so strangely like a blowing wind. "Wendy!"

"Peter!" She screamed back, and forgot her balance. She fell into the river and tried to grip the bridge, but it slipped past her. She felt suddenly that she was indeed not dreaming at all. The waters swallowed her up and she gulped in mouthfuls of it. Her feet were desperate for ground to stand on, but only found more water. Then, her head was underwater, and she could not tell which way was the bottom of the river, and which way to burst for air.

She gasped suddenly for breath, and found herself still in her bed. So, it really had been another dream. It had been terrifying. For a moment, Wendy was sure that she had died, and her heart was still beating in rapid tattoo from it. Her lungs were stinging, and felt that perhaps she had not been breathing entirely properly either.

Still spinning from nearly dying, Wendy held little thought to Peter across on the island, but right as she was about to drift into her last, finally peaceful sleep, she heard again that winded "Wendy" coming from the window.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day, the Darling were joyous to find that their little ones had returned. The children were kissed, and fed porridge for breakfast, and were even told they could stay at the Gardens all day instead of going to school. John did take notice that it was Thursday when it should have been a Saturday, but Michael was too happy for porridge to give a fig about what day of the week it was. Wendy looked at John with a skeptical kind of glance, and he returned it briefly but with a stern shrug as if saying 'but even so, we get a day off of school', and that was enough for John to forget any strangeness in the happenings of February the 5th through the 9th. Michael, wrapped in about 20 layers of woolens, ran about the house excitedly with his kite in hand, while John readied his model ship to float in the Round Pond. Wendy only could think to bring a notebook, as she could still not shake herself from being in Neverland.

The sight of that sword piercing right through Peter haunted her still. The world had slowed as he looked down upon it with doomed realization. No, she could bear to think on it no longer. Her heart felt like lead in her chest. The pain was so uncomfortable she even considered playing it off as just a dream, but the sweet memory of Peter would not allow her such graces. She would be haunted by his death.

"Are you going to do homework at the Gardens, Wendy?" John asked morosely, eyeing her notebook.

"No," She sighed. "I'm going to write about Peter." Sort her feelings unforgivingly on an innocent sheet of paper more like, she thought.

It was warm for a February day, and the boys were happily occupied, although lonesome on account of all the children over eight years old being at school that day. Nana had come, and kept close to Wendy as she wrote over and over unspoken words to Peter Pan. Mother and Father Darling had already hooked each other's arms and began to wander on one of the many paths in the Gardens. With keen observation, Wendy saw that they walked on the Baby Walk, where at the end, Mothers would fold the paper boats with wished for children. If her mother were to fold a boat today, Wendy thought, she hoped she would finally have a sister. Wendy then began uneasily folding the papers in her notebook, but found that she had no talent in it.

With much effort and little success, Wendy fashioned something boat-like. It was a disastrous looking thing, with little chance for floating and made her way down the Baby Walk. The gravel crunched seriously under her shoes, and the sound of perambulator wheels followed her. It was unusual for a young non-mother to take this way, but it led to the little bridge, you see, and the moment she saw it her dream flooded her with recall. She even was a bit out of breath. Now, she heard the wind and it whispered her name.

"Wendy, Wendy!" It howled, and she could almost imagine it sounded like Peter.

Her legs sprinted towards it to the bridge from which she had leaned on the night before. Her throat already felt full of water as she looked below into the river, but it could not stop her from wondering if he was really there. Looking around to make sure that no one was watching, she bent over to spy if there really was a little island with Peter waving.

The island was there.

Peter was not.

It upset her more than it should have, so she looked again. Again.

After the third time, her eyes were stinging, and she threw her little boat into the river where it was promptly engulfed in its waves.

And so, went the. day at the park, and Wendy had not enjoyed it.

That night, the children came to their room to see that the window had bars on it. When they turned to ask their mother why, they saw her wring her hands anxiously. She avoided the subject all together and tucked them into bed, as if she, too, was all too happy to pretend that Peter had not let Wendy touch the very painted clouds on the ceiling above her head. There was a thorough shuffling and sorting of the children's thoughts that night, but Wendy objected, and insisted she would do it herself for once. Mother Darling smiled and said 'of course dear' as Wendy did the opposite and looked at her jumbled confused thoughts with utmost analyzation. Mother always had a way of making all bad memories fade into forgets right before bedtime, but this night, Wendy needed them as evidence. She was still not all too sure about herself, and certainly not about Neverland.

The nightlights were snuffed, the shutters were closed, and the children's breathing slowed to a sleep. Wendy fought sleep as long as she could, still entangled with facts and reasons why Peter Pan had been real, and then also the terrible countering emotions that came with that conclusion. But, sleep found her after all, and Wendy found with happy surprise that all was not lost. For a brief moment, right before true sleep, Wendy saw the shores of Neverland. But it was too late now, she had gone further into that very deep and empty sleep that most adults envy. By the time she awoke, she had almost forgotten about it.

Peter awoke in a place of glittering things. One would expect to be laying down and yawning when awake but Peter found himself standing, as if regaining senses after a bout of dizziness, but as his surroundings unfurled he found he was in a place completely unknown to him. Indoors, with the ticking of some clock behind his ears. At first, he seemed only a visitor within himself, and he heard a voice quite like his own but completely unpracticed say,

"What are these bottles, for, mother?" As he watched his hand finger a delicate faceted glass bottle.

"It is for beauty, my dear David." The mother responded. "Mothers need to be beautiful, as young men need to be successful." She said smiling. Peter felt his cheek being pinched by a delicate but firm hand and sourness settled into his gut. He was trapped inside of someone else, and panic softly settled into him. The ticking of the clock grew menacingly slower. There were thoughts in his head that were not his, but they parralled his own none the less.

I don't want to be successful, I want to be free.

Peter felt strange and trapped in this body. He looked down at his hands, and they looked his own but his nails were neat, and his knuckled unscathed.

"I'm not David." Peter forced through the boy. David's mind felt some small shock at its strange utterance but quietly receded. The mother turned to him with a sour smile which rid her of any beauty she may have laid upon it before. All of her ugliness showed in the scowl she besotted upon the boy David.

"I don't want you playing those ridiculous games. You know it upsets me, David."

"But I'm not! I'm Peter!" A hand flew itself to David's ear, and Peter felt the stinging ring of it.

"Don't you start that again you awful child! I don't want to see you unless you are a composed gentleman!" But her anger had not yet subsided and two more strikes hit the boys. Peter, being defiant in nature, raised a hand to stop the third, and David quietly whispered inwardly. You shouldn't do that… Then David receded completely. Where to, Peter did not know, but he suffered a full blow from an adult. A woman, but still stronger than he, it was all Peter could do to wrap his fingers together and strike back at her cheek.

"Ugh!" She cried disgusted. "My face, David! You little vermin!" A blush of red blossomed under her carefully painted cheeks, and her anger grew to a crescendo. Her hands wrapped around Peter's throat, and twisted his collar into a chokehold, dragging him into the hallway and pushing him into the room next door.

"I guess you will not be seeing your father tonight! I will send him away, telling him what awful seed he has given me. No supper tonight!" The lock of the door clicked shut and footsteps made their way away from the door.

Peter's teeth were clenched, and some angry tears left his eyes.

She's not all that bad… if you don't anger her. Whispered the timid voice of David.

"Not all that bad? Look what she's done to you!" Peter cried, carefully rubbing the soreness at his throat.

I barely feel anything. He responded. Then the voice went away, as if the soul had abandoned the body. When Peter clenched David's hands, they felt very much like his own. His anger ebbed, and finally the silence of the room, save for the muted ticking from beyond the wall, brought him back to his senses. Where was he, even? Peter could not recollect. Everything seemed made of feeling and instinct, but never memory. There was something terribly wrong about all of this, Peter felt he did not belong. He had never even heard of such a thing as two voices in one body.

"David?" He whispered. But the voice did not answer. Feeling for the first time alone, Peter recalled a feeling that things had definitely not gone how they should. He lay upon the bed, listening to all the foreign voices and noises of the inside of a house, and fell asleep dreaming that he was calling out to someone.


End file.
